Save scumming

[grumpymoose]

As someone that has a life, and responsibilities that can, and will, interrupt my hobby I prefer a save anytime 'except in combat' feature that allows me to save, and load, the game as required. I want to make as many saved as I want, load them as required, and not have to worry that something will call me away, and leave me having to run through something I've already done due to something silly like a check point system. I also rather dislike systems that you can exit out of at will, saving character states but not world states (Open world games like Red Dead are an unfortunate example of this).

 

I want a save system very much like ICW or BG. Save anytime, load anytime. I'd make the one exception that there should be no saving in combat.

[Sky_walker]

This "save scumming" thing is a joke. There's no such thing.

 

If you can't resist "save & load" - it's your problem, not a problem with a game design.

 

For everyone else - having quick save anywhere in the game is a blessing. Child starts to cry - save & help him/her. Wife wants something - save & go. etc. etc. No interruption in gameplay, no lost progress, everything's nice and smooth.

 

I hate single-player games that do not offer free saving anywhere in the game (let's say - minus battles). First of all - it feels like a console-imposed limitation. Secondly - there's no excuse for not-having such feature in Single player game where you don't have anyone else waiting for your action.

[anameforobsidian]

I think that designers tend to overestimate the effect of save scumming and underestimate the negative effects of checkpoint save system.  The one time an anti-save-scumming system was put in a game that I enjoyed was the casino reloads in NV.  It kept me more honest and made luck a more valuable attribute.  

 

For this game they should just pull a BG system so you can't save in battle.

[Monte Carlo]

Save. Try something. Fail. Load. Try again. Win.

 

How is P:E handling this? Is this even considered an issue?

 

I never cared for Diablo II's (any many games since) waypoint save but I can't think of anything better. Is it punishment enough not remembering to save before every major event?

 

Somebody else unhealthily interested in how other people play a (single player) game.

 

If you don't like 'save scumming' (Jesus I hate that term) then don't do it.

[Lioness]

There is an option to save anywhere yet discourage save scumming: saving the random seed or a bunch of pre-generated pseudo-random numbers when game is saved.

 

In that way one can save anywhere including just before opening a chest with 'randomly' determined contents... that chest will have the same content no matter how many times one saves/reloads.

 

It is of course possible to get a different drop from chest by reloading, doing some random stuff, then opening the chest again,... but that's ok, the goal being to discourage save scumming not preventing it.

 

This also assumes save scumming is a problem at all... if someone wan't to open a chest 1337 times to get that 0.1% artifact drop, how is that spoiling your fun ?

[teknoman2]

here's save scumming logic in a nutshell

i save

i make a choice

i do not like the result

i load and change it

...

the game should have a system to prevent me from doing this, because if i reload to change the choice it breaks immersion

genius!

[ikanreed]

here's save scumming logic in a nutshell

i save

i make a choice

i do not like the result

i load and change it

...

the game should have a system to prevent me from doing this, because if i reload to change the choice it breaks immersion

genius!

 

 

And what, pray tell, is wrong with wanting artificial restrictions?  That's game theory in a nutshell, games are a set of rules that guide and limit decision making to a player looking to optomize the results of those decisions.

 

If one of those rules is going back to a previous state, that can be fun.  If a variation on the game denies those rules, it's a slightly different game that requires a slightly different approach.

 

In Baldur's gate, picking pockets can be a useful feature, and you usually don't think twice about doing it.  In an ironman run, you'd heavily weigh the consequences first(but might still do it).  The "best approach" is different in each case, meaning the game you're playing is fundamentally different.  Wanting the ability to hard code interesting rules into the game is fun.

[teknoman2]

so? someone wants to play like this why deny him the option to do so? if you cannot resist the temptation to scumm, it's your problem and the rest of us who can resist or just want to scumm, dont have to pay for your sin by being forced to play the way YOU want to

[HardRains]

I'm the thread starter and the question was adequately answered in the first reply and in the interviews with the latest update.

 

I don't want the game to create unnecessary restrictions on how others play but I'd like them to minimize the need to reload.

 

For example, pick pocket should either succeed or fail. Period. You either have the skill or you don't to pick pocket that NPC. If not, you need more experience to train pick pocket.

[Ward Dragon]

I'm a huge supporter of a true save-anywhere system. 

 

If I need to quit the game, I don't want to lose progress. 

 

If there's one hard part that's giving me trouble, I don't want to continuously repeat the easy part before it over and over again just to get back up to the part I'm having trouble with. 

 

If the dialogue options are unclear, I don't want to be stuck with choosing the one I didn't mean to (this isn't really a problem if the dialogue choices will show the full text though, but I hate it when the choices are just icons or short phrases that don't really tell me what the character will say if I pick it). 

 

And of course if the game is buggy I like having a ton of backup saves that I can fall back on to minimize the amount of gameplay I lose from trying to get around the bug.

 

 

Having said all of that, I have reloaded a lot if I was having trouble with a fight (trying different strategies until I found something that worked) but I never really reloaded a lot to win at random events like opening a chest.  I don't mind at all if the game pre-generates random events and saves the results in the game save because I wasn't going to keep redoing the random event anyway.  I can see how that might be addictive to people who like to gamble though, and if the game wants to discourage people from getting addicted to gambling in it then I think that's okay. 

 

The main issue for me is that people should be able to save their progress whenever they want so that they won't lose a lot of gameplay if something happens.

[Lephys]

And what, pray tell, is wrong with wanting artificial restrictions?  That's game theory in a nutshell, games are a set of rules that guide and limit decision making to a player looking to optomize the results of those decisions.

Nothing is wrong with artificial restrictions, in general. Which is why this thread isn't entitled "Artificial Restrictions and the Problems with Wanting Them."

 

No, we're talking about specific restrictions, and the folly of those specific restrictions.

 

If the game creators didn't want you killing civilians, and therefore deactivated the attack function in any sort of town/populated area... well, now you've got the unintended consequence of "now you can't fight any actually hostile, non-civilian people in town!", which is in no way desired. There's absolutely no reason for that to exist.

 

Then, to top THAT off in the example, the whole "we're going to discourage save scumming" thing would be akin to allowing you to tediously run your character into a civilian, slowly pushing their "sprite" across the town, until you eventually push them out of the town 30 minutes later, then attack and kill them. So, you're preventing the game's design from incorporating the perfectly reasonable possibility of hostile ANYTHNG inside a populated area, AND you're not actually preventing anyone from doing anything they really want to do.

 

Unless you force everyone to play IronMan Mode, you're not going to prevent them from reloading from that last checkpoint and redoing any amount of gameplay to chance some outcome from just a few seconds ago. If you make the checkpoints an hour apart, the people who adamantly want to change that outcome are simply going to curse you all the more for "making" them waste all that time, instead of just letting them save anytime, anywhere.

 

So, goal: unaccomplished. Unwanted detriment: accomplished. Sounds objectively like fruitlessness, to me.

Edited December 12, 2013 by Lephys

[Crowseye]

I guess I'll be the jerk here.

 

Certainly there are reasons for a developer to restrict saving based on the experience it hopes to create for the player (see platformers, sports games, etc.).

 

But, in this case, I believe the topic is really about the perception that somebody else's use of save scumming cheapens one's own experience.

 

One has to wrap it up in a discussion about "challenge" and "immersion" because otherwise it would come across as psychotic: it indicates that one measures one's self-worth relative to the accomplishments of others and the prestige earned by those accomplishments within the player community.

 

In other words, one doesn't want others to be able to feel the same sense of accomplishment or get the same recognition while playing under an easier  "rule set" than oneself.

 

I don't say that to support some idiotic "See!  Gamers are losers!" ideology.  I spend more hours gaming than anything but sleeping and working, and I play most of my games more "hardcore" than most.  I say it because imposing strict rules to satisfy the ego of a certain subset of players is an unproductive approach to single-player RPGs and should never be a consideration in the design of such games.

[teknoman2]

in the end, the game does have a system that should satisfy everyone

you want to change your decisions every time you dont like the result? just play normal mode

you can hold back the urge to reload if something does not go your way? play any mode you want

you dont want to change your decisions but can't resist the urge to reload? play trial of iron

the people of the 3rd category are the ones that usually care about save scumming and think that everyone should play with certain saving restrictions just because they need them

[HansKrSG]

 

I do wonder what an RPG with an auto-save system (without being able to make saves yourself) would be like.

Shadowrun Returns uses a checkpoint save system if you haven't tried it yet.

 

 

Because of limitations in time. Aftetr the expansion that is due sometime in the future, you can save anywhere and anytime.

[Gfted1]

 

 

I do wonder what an RPG with an auto-save system (without being able to make saves yourself) would be like.

Shadowrun Returns uses a checkpoint save system if you haven't tried it yet.

 

 

Because of limitations in time. Aftetr the expansion that is due sometime in the future, you can save anywhere and anytime.

 

 

I thought it was due to lack of funds but either way Im glad its getting patched out.

[Mor]

I don't know why people enjoy Shadowrun. Is it the theme/nostalgia, turnbased mechanics or isometric look? because as far as RPGs goes, its just not very good and seemed more linear then most large Action-RPGs now days 

Edited December 13, 2013 by Mor

[ZeroBlackbirds]

I don't know why people enjoy Shadowrun. Is it the theme/nostalgia, turnbased mechanics or isometric look? because as far as RPGs goes, its just not very good and seemed more linear then most large Action-RPGs now days 

 

I would tend to agree with you in that it is nostalgia, but to some degree, it's also the toolset that was packaged with the game.  I think I've enjoyed player-created stories and campaigns a lot more than I did the one packaged with the game and the community has managed to do some interesting things with the limited objects it has been provided, but that's moving us away from the topic of discussion.

 

My thoughts on "save scumming" are generally that every time I see a discussion like this one appear on a game forum, it makes me cringe.  This is one of many reasons multiple play modes were introduced and is a "problem" that was already solved a long time ago.

[PrimeJunta]

I'm sure I'll tire of re-stating this at some point, but here goes one more time.

 

Save-scumming isn't the problem. Games designed for save-scumming are. If the manual says "Save frequently and in different slots," the design is broken. 

 

Many of the IE games were broken in this way. It was simply not possible to play without saving often and in different slots, and reloading repeatedly to get through many combats. Not until you had trial-and-errored the solutions and already knew them anyway.

 

I liked the combat in IWD because it didn't do this all that much. There were just a couple of boss fight type things that played this way; most of the fights felt tough but fair. Same thing with ToEE, once you've figured out the mechanics of combat. BG and BG2 were really bad in this respect.

 

IOW, I should certainly hope that the game allows unlimited saves, which by implication lets you save-scum to your heart's content. If you enjoy that sort of thing, then knock yourself out, I don't care. But I would like the game to be playable without save-scumming, once I've played enough to have figured out the systems and mechanics.

 

(As an aside, I also intensely dislike people who whine that a game is "too easy" because it doesn't force you to save before every fight. That kind of design doesn't test your skill, only your persistence, and persistence in the face of a computer game is not much of a virtue as far as I'm concerned.)

[ambrusynev]

I dislike the idea that save scumming is actually a problem in a single player party based RPG game. I think that the playing styles of people, like me, who tend to save a lot, never harm the gameplay experience of those who prefer a more limited save system. The solution is to have games which let everybody enjoy gaming by including a save system which makes the vast majority of gamers happy by being able to use as few or as many saves as they feel is necessary.

[teknoman2]

I dislike the idea that save scumming is actually a problem in a single player party based RPG game. I think that the playing styles of people, like me, who tend to save a lot, never harm the gameplay experience of those who prefer a more limited save system. The solution is to have games which let everybody enjoy gaming by including a save system which makes the vast majority of gamers happy by being able to use as few or as many saves as they feel is necessary.

i for example dont save very often... if certain games had no autosave function, i could play for hours only to die and have to restart the whole thing. i dont want games that do not allow me to save whenever i want, but i just dont use it if i get too into it. however i certainly do not pretend that since i dont have the habbit of saving every 5s the save system of the game should prevent others from doing so

[Lord of Lost Socks]

Save. Try something. Fail. Load. Try again. Win.

 

How is P:E handling this? Is this even considered an issue?

 

I never cared for Diablo II's (any many games since) waypoint save but I can't think of anything better. Is it punishment enough not remembering to save before every major event?

One of my favourite aspects of the Infinity Engine games was encountering a boss, and then dying to it, readjust my strategy, maybe die, try something different, win! Really cool.

 

If I didn't die the first time I was disappointed for it being too easy. I spent 4 hours dying to Sarevok, 'til I got it right, and I was so pleased. And yeah, I realize that probably means I'm horrible at the game, but I don't care. Really love that aspect.

[golani79]

I don´t see the point of having a "save-scum" prevention in the game.

 

Everyone can play as he or she pleases and there are no disadvanteges for anyone cause it is a single player game.

If people prefer to not save all the time they are free to do so or what I´ve read play the hardcore mode.

 

There´s not always that much time to play games and if you´d loose 2-3 hours of progress due the restriction to save when you like it could be kinda frustrating.

[Wintersong]

The game shouldn't police the lack of will of some people to not cheat. If someone wants to cheat (or whatever), he will find the way. Even on ironman. To me, someone bragging on playing Ironman is the equivalent of "Look at me, I need this option because if not I'll cheat!!". These days, playing ironman on PC? Sorry, not as trusty (as evidence of "gaming purity") as it might have been back in the day. Plus, single player game!!!

 

Checkpoint saving system a la Shadowrun Returns sucks. Game, good. Save system, bad.

[golani79]

These days, playing ironman on PC? Sorry, not as trusty (as evidence of "gaming purity") as it might have been back in the day. Plus, single player game!!!

 

Even back in the old days there were more than enough possibilities to cheat / manipulate savegames or whatever.

 

If someone cheats in a singleplayer game it surely doesn´t bother me - everyone needs to know for him / herself if it´s worth cheating as it takes away a lot of fun and rewarding situations from a game.

[Måndagsbarn]

I'm always savescumming like mad, it's just how I play. It almost feels like some kind of OCD-light sometimes, I have to save and then reload if I get a less than optimal outcome.

 

Makes playing UFO (and especially Terror from the Deep) a chore sometimes, let me tell you.